Toy Review: FF VII AC Series 1

Final Fantasy VII
Advent Children Series 1

I loved Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.

I didn’t UNDERSTAND it, but the whole thing just wowed me. From the amazing fight scenes, to the digital eye-candy, to the unbelievable hotness that is Tifa, Advent Children (FF VII AC) is one of the best examples of CGI animation I’ve seen.

Understand that I have never played the game. Ostensibly, it’s about one guy who is a little forgetful going up against another guy who’s a little pissed at the world. In between there’s some silliness about Gaia and earth magic and a disease and ghosts. At least that’s what I gathered after several viewings and some time on the Net. It’s all very convoluted and totally Japanese. Some of them can design awesome stuff, but I can’t stand their storytelling mores.

Thankfully, you don’t need to follow any continuity to appreciate Playarts’ 8″ scale action figures based on FF VII AC. Now before we get to far in, let me warn you that these are NOT regularly available. They were produced about 4 or 5 years ago and not in large quantities. The number that was shipped here was low as well. If you’re here in the Philippines, note that these ran about php1500 each 3 or 4 years ago. Now they’ll easily be php2500 and up, especially for Tifa. And that’s only if you can FIND them. They’re scooped up as soon as any specialty store is able to find one. If you’re in the States, I think you’ll need to import them and they don’t come cheap.

Why so expensive? Quality. Fine materials, useful articulation, great accessories that are relavant, and a fantastic sculpt. It really is a shame that they don’t make toys for other video game licenses. I love NECA and all but they don’t make a lot of female figures and their male one’s tend toward Schwarzenneger proportions rather than Bruce Lee. It can get boring.

Final Fantasy line provides some much needed variety. Unlike the other installments, FF VII has gotten more attention from Playart. Aside from this wave, VII has had another wave of figures based on the character designs from the game, plus 2 more waves of figures from the Advent Children line, and a few from the Kingdom Hearts crossover. I really only have the first set, since I keep putting off the others. I’m definitely looking forward to their FF XIII set.

The first figure I got from their XVII AC set was Tifa Lockheart. At the time, she was already getting popular, always disappearing whenever the set was shelved, leaving her wave mates on the shelf. It’s not surprising at all since she is by far my favorite Playarts figure ever. That includes the X-2 YuRiPa set.

Like all the XVII AC figures, she’s dressed primarily in black. Not a bad thing really since the whole movie was pretty depressing. The sculpt is excellent, with proportions that look very close to real. She does have the requisite extra large bra size, but they’re not idiotically big. Her legs are also the normal length, not too super model long. Mattel could learn a ton from studying this figure for their DCUC female bodies.

Articulation is quite frankly, amazing. Though her legs are a little limited due to Playart’s funky hip design that doens’t allow a lot of sideways motion, the rest of the joint work allows her to strike some fierce poses. The lunging ones are probably the best, and coupled with her insanely useful foot articulation (it’s as good as a ball joint, and you can tilt the sole of her shoe!), and lower center of gravity, she’s probably the most stable among all four figures.

There are some bad points. Her knees for one look awful, no matter what you do with them. Then there is the aforementioned lack of side ways motion in the hips. If they had also taken some time to make the hinge joints go back more than 45 degrees, that would have been great too.

The biggest dissappointment is that her face lacks any emotion at all. It’s a trait she shares with almost every other figure on the line. It would definitely have benefited from a smirk or something, or maybe an extra head that was screaming with hair flowing in the wind. Anything to make her seem more forceful.

Next was Sephiroth. I don’t really understand why female video game and anime fans love this guy so much. He looks like a dark prince of S&M with the long hair and all the black leather straps and buckles and whatnot. I guess it’s the bad boy thing coupled with their facination with yaoi and that bishounen aesthetic. Me it’s just, “dude looks like a lady, dude”.

That being said, Sephiroth is a great toy. For one, he towers over the rest of the figures. This guy could play basketball if he, you know, lost the hair and the leather. He stands a good head above Tifa and Cloud.

His main accessory is the Masamune sword. Named for Japan’s greatest swordsmith, it’s almost as tall as it’s owner! It’s also very thin and I keep thinking I’m going to break it. His articulation does allow him to hold the nodachi two-handed in several positions, so that’s great.

Articulation is sub-par, mainly because the his shoulder armor limits the arms and his leather coat limits his lower body. The coat is made up of a pretty durable rubber-like material that doesn’t really have any give to it. It prevents the legs from going anywhere.

In addition to that, he’s also got pretty loose feet and ankle joints and his footprint/mass ratio is all wonky. He’s a sonofapregnantdog to pose, since he’s constantly falling an his ass.

After that, I got the Cloud/Fenrir boxset. It took me awhile to track one down at a good price. At the time, people were selling it for php4,000 to php5,000. I was just starting in the hobby and my job, and there was no way I was paying that much for this thing. Of course, NOW that’s pretty much par for course. I’m considering dropping that much so I can get a transparent version of a Transformer I already have, and it’s only about 6″ big. Anyway, I finally got it for php2,500.00 and a local anime convention. Score! Nowadays, it’s back to the old price.

I’ve already reviewed this set before , so I won’t go into to much detail. Suffice to say, it’s made of awesome and is totally worth the price.

Here are pictures though:

The last one I found was Vincent. I was never sure I was going to pick him up since he’s not red. You remember that “Which-on-of-these-doesn’t-belong” song they sung on Seasame Street. Yeah.

But then I saw him for php1,500.00 (this was several years after the first one and this was the first time I had seen him in a long time). Why not complete the set?

He displays great with the team, but he’s got to be my least favorite PA figure in my collection. Remember Sephiroth’s problem with the coat? Well Vincent has it too, only this time it affects his arms. They’re basically stuck at his sides. He can raise his elbow, but it looks stupid to have that awesome Cerberus fired from the hip. He also shares the same footprint/mass ratio problem. Grrrr…

Another thing that came up about 2 years after I bought him was that his legs keep FALLING OFF! I don’t know if it was a factory defect, or faulty low quality material on the hip joint, or if I maybe have a bootleg copy and don’t know, but with the way he’s put together, it is the suck trying to glue it back together.

So, bottomline? If you have a lot of disposable income and want to have some high quality toys to display, this is your line. You can even expand it with about 4 or 5 other figures that came out a couple of years after this one. If you’re not satisfied with their included extra hands and weapons, you can even track down the extra weapons set for these figures, but that’s going to cost you almost as much as the figures themselves.

IF you can find them. Good luck.